[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       koffice
Subject:    Fwd: Re: Fwd: Splitted view for KOffice apps?
From:       Max Moritz Sievers <max.moritz.sievers () gmx ! de>
Date:       2000-05-27 10:21:30
[Download RAW message or body]



----------  Weitergeleitete Nachricht Re: Fwd: Splitted view for KOffice apps?  ----------
Subject: Re: Fwd: Splitted view for KOffice apps?
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 23:48:04 +1000
From: "Steven D'Aprano" <dippy@mikka.net.au>


Federico Cozzi wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 25 May 2000, Max Moritz Sievers wrote:
> 
> > view of a document (e.g. KWord: View -> New View...). What
> > about adding a "View -> Split" item much like in (x)emacs,
> > but limited to one single document? This means it would be
> 
> When I last used Word for Windows (it was Word 2!), it had a similar
> feature. [snip]
> Very easy and simple to use.

I agree. Unless I am very much mistaken, it was one of the few genuine
UI innovations that came out of Microsoft. Unless, of course, emacs
was doing it years earlier.

> > Disadvantages:
> > - Is this "easy to use", intuitive?
> 
> It was easy, but it was quite difficult to discover, i.e. no menu
> option/toolbar button. Just the black handle.
> Do we want it to be difficult to discover in KOffice? I would say yes,
> because it's an advanced feature (the kind of thing you find in manuals,
> not the kind of thing you find on the toolbar!)

Not everything can be easy to discover, for the simple reason that you
would soon run out of screen real estate for the giant buttons :-)

Personally, I find split windows very useful, easy to use, and the
sort of thing that users love to spread by word of mouth ("Hey! Wanna
learn a new power trick? Just try this...")

(Of course, it should still be documented. Just don't loose any sleep
about it being hard to discover.)

You could even add a menu command "Split window" which splits the
window into two equal frames.


-- 
Steven D'Aprano
-------------------------------------------------------

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]